Arcanum Idle

Arcanum Idle is an incremental game made by a solo developer, Rior, who has been working on it since August. The player moves into a house with a study containing a chalk circle left by a predecessor. Placing a hand in the circle produces mana, which can be spent on embers that generate mana automatically, and then on rune stones that generate embers. By the eighth tier, the numbers no longer have names. The game is now released on Steam and has one user review.

Progress is built around six layers of reset: resonate, transcribe, ascend, converge, collapse and answer. Resonating redraws the circle larger, while transcribing wipes the study and converts what was learned into insight. Each layer changes how the layers below it play. According to the developer, the final layer opens at roughly 55 to 75 hours in, with time spent while the game is closed counting towards this. After each ascension the player chooses a doctrine: the quickened grows stronger with more clicking, the patient grows stronger the longer it is left alone, and the threefold path combines both approaches.

Other features include a constellation, a 5×5 board where each star’s value depends on its neighbours and bridges strengthen adjacent stars without producing anything themselves. Seven trials run the study with one rule broken, such as no tempo, only two sigils, or no ladder, and completing one grants a permanent reward. Ten relics permanently change a rule of the study. The game keeps running while closed for up to a week, autobuyers activate as they are unlocked, and automatic resets run quietly. Steam Cloud saves with local backups, keyboard shortcuts, adjustable text size, colour-blind palettes, contrast settings and partial controller support are included. The developer cites Antimatter Dimensions and Cookie Clicker as inspirations. The game is available in nine languages, with English and Simplified Chinese reviewed and the others still being checked by native speakers.